Monday, February 27, 2012

Bruised and Bloodied

Something I didn't specifically mention in my last post was that Quarantine Zone doesn't use health points. If a character gets seriously injured they will accrue a bloodied token, taking +2DC on everything they do until healed. Every time a character gets injured they are significantly less able to overcome challenges until they eventually are caught by zombies and devoured.

From my combat post:

" When the ZM (Zombie Master) wins a fight he or she gets to roll one or more times on a Zombie Melee chart, once for each attacker success which exceeded the defender's success total.

The Maul and Bite result both are "Critical" hits and will leave a character "Bloodied", the Bite result might also transmit disease. See the future section on Conditions to find out more about being Bloodied, the short explanation though is that each time a character is Bloodied they take a +2DC on ALL checks until they are healed.

A character who is Grabbed can do nothing in their turn except make an opposed Brawn check to try to break loose of the grab. Alternatively another player might be able to rescue the Grabbed player by either knocking or killing the Zombie(s) doing the grabbing.

If the character is still Grabbed in the next Zombie attack round. The Zombie(s) preforming the grab will attempt to Rend the player- the player must make another opposed Brawn check. If the character succeeds they become "Bloodied" (or take another Bloodied token if they were already Bloodied)- if the character fails they are ripped to pieces by the grabbing Zombie(s). See the future section on Zombie Feeding Rules to find out how much time the other players will have to run while the feeding Zombies are distracted by their former comrade."

Survivors are more likely to win combats against single zombies but it will be difficult to "kill" them, whereas zombies are far more likely to injure and kill humans if their attacks are successful. I expect combats will be battles of attrition that players would be wise to avoid. PCs will inevitably loose if they try to take on a zombie horde. These rules are meant to be tough on the players, combat against zombies should never be undertaken lightly- a single mistake could spell disaster later on. I wanted to set it up so there will be desperate struggles to save wounded friends which have been grabbed by zombies.